Compliance Review: Final Report and Recommendations

Annex H – Acknowledgements

This review was conducted with the assistance and contribution of a great number of people. While it may appear this report only represents the efforts of a single commissioned individual, in reality it involved concerted efforts by upwards of 150 persons.

Representatives of the three different stakeholder groups ญญ  political party experts, by-election poll workers and election field management personnel  played a crucial role in developing the collective depth of understanding needed to comprehend how multiple sources of non-compliance could be addressed with appropriate solutions. The leaders of electoral management bodies in all Canadian provinces and territories were generous in providing detailed information about how compliance is managed in their jurisdictions, and were candid about the challenges they all face. As well, election professionals from across the country and around the world shared their insights on how compliance can be measured, what their experience has been in addressing non-conforming activity on the part of election officers, and confirmed how relatively little attention this aspect of electoral administration has been given.

Elections Canada's headquarters staff, at all levels, gave the compliance review process priority. Management cleared the way for review activities to be supported administratively, and line staff frequently went beyond the call of duty to ensure review activity coordination and all related logistics were delivered on time and with consistent professionalism.

Finally, there are three persons whose contribution was essential during the review process.

First, Sarah Levesque-King, an executive assistant in the Electoral Events sector at Elections Canada, consistently cleared administrative road blocks and resolved scheduling and production challenges with seemingly magical levels of efficiency, grace and good humour.

Second, Deputy Chief Electoral Officer Rennie Molnar inspired all involved to give the compliance problem their best intellectual energy, drew clear boundaries to ensure assessments coming out of the review process were truly independent, and challenged this Reviewer to think longer and write shorter.

And last, but by no means least, is the contribution of Mark Lawson. Mr. Lawson has been acting in an Elections Canada senior director role while on an executive exchange program involving a one-year leave of absence from his position as the Deputy Electoral Commissioner for New Zealand. It was Mark who provided the "glue" that kept the compliance review process focused, coordinated, documented and delivered according to plan without a single milestone date missed or fiscal budget component exceeded. All that, plus his Kiwi knack for pleasantly but persistently asking hard questions like: "Why would you do it that way? Has no one considered this alternative?" added immeasurable value.